Madame Avis

Madame Avis, as she liked to be addressed, was a colourful and famously outspoken character, even intimidating at times, who had an acute business brain and could drive a hard bargain – a useful attribute which led to her acquiring Ilkley's famous restaurant from the receivers in 1992 and re-establishing it as a noted eating

establishment.

But she could also display a deep generosity of both spirit and substance once her respect and affection had been won.

She was born in Athens the eldest of four children of a wealthy merchant family, her mother being an aristocrat who was a lady-in-waiting to the then Queen of Greece.

But her early years of privileged education came to an abrupt end at the onset of the Second World War, and she was forced to leave her Swiss boarding school to return to Greece. The family struggled to survive those years, with ever-present threat of starvation, first under German occupation and then during the ensuing brutal civil war.

The experience of witnessing the death and injury of close relatives left fundamental scars, but also shaped her personal sense of perspective. As the eldest child she took on the responsibility of supporting the family when her father was blinded during the conflict.

In 1947 she accepted a scholarship to Athens University to study Classics and Archaeology in the face of considerable family opposition, supporting herself by working as a tourist guide. Her knowledge of the antiquities and her fluency in several languages ensured she rapidly became one of the most senior guides in the National Tourist Organisation.She had responsibility for looking after the Royal Family, their guests and other VIPs, including Aristotle Onassis.

But the chauvinistic culture of post-war Greece was too restrictive and stifling for an independently-minded young woman and, somewhat fittingly, her path to Ilkley began on the steps of the Acropolis, where in 1954 she met Anthony Avis, a recent graduate from Cambridge University on a trip with fellow students. Her mother strongly opposed the match, but Madame Avis was never one to be bound by convention and they married four years later.

She arrived in Bradford in 1958 where she taught firstly at Belle Vue Boys' Grammar School and then for 15 years at Ilkley Grammar, where she taught French.

It was at Belle Vue that she earned her curious soubriquet. As she once said in a Yorkshire Post interview: "Apart from the cleaners I was the only woman in the school and the boys had no idea what to call me. As I was several months pregnant, Miss hardly seemed appropriate so Madame seemed to stick."

Following a sabbatical at York University where she gained an M.Phil in Philosophy of Education she decided to change course. Her business career was launched when she acquired the Lister's Arms Hotel, in Ilkley, then a tired coaching inn, closely followed by the Ribblesdale Arms, at Gisburn.

When her plan to expand the Lister's Arms was rejected by the planners she sold it to housing developers and, in 1978 bought Ilkley's Crescent Hotel, also then at a low ebb. Four years later she set up a nightclub which inevitably was named Madame's.

When in 1992 she resurrected the Box Tree she used her irrepressible self-belief, determination and sheer force of personality to win over customers and staff, and her efforts were eventually rewarded when the restaurant won a Michelin star.Further honours inevitably followed.

But after her husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness in 2002 she increasingly lost interest in the business as she spent more time with him, and it was sold in 2004.

The celebrated Yorkshire-born chef Marco Pierre White, who trained at the Box Tree, said: "She was a very special lady and a lady who had great integrity".

Madame Avis is survived by her two children, Charles and Alice, her grandchildren Freddie, Oscar, Emily, Daisy and Lola, her brother George and sister Toula. She was predeceased by her younger sister Katie.

A funeral service will be held at Leeds' Greek Orthodox Church on Monday at 1pm, followed by a private internment at Thalassa, Ilkley.